A quick tip for searching for files in Windows 7. This applies to campus computers or your Windows 7 computer at home.

If you are like me, I have a lot of files and sometimes need to find a file with a specific phrase in the document. By default, Windows 7 searches for your search phrase by the file names and not within the files. This can be changed by doing the following steps:

Open Computer (Start > Computer).

Click Tools > Folder Options (Atl-T).

Select the Search tab.

Select the second option for “Always search file names and contents (this might take several minutes)”.

Click Apply and then OK.

After making this change, the Windows 7 search will search file names and within files for the item you are searching. I found that making this change has helped me to locate files much easier.